FREE Email Newsletter

Daily news and top headlines for broadband communications engineering and design professionals

Suddenlink Communications has promoted Amy Atkins to the position of vice president of talent and organizational development. In her new role, Atkins will direct the leadership training department at the cable operator’s headquarters in St. Louis.

San Francisco's new crackdown on a mobile app that allows people to auction off their public parking spots marks yet another clash between innovative technologies and regulators trying to maintain law and order, public safety and a sense of social decorum. The app, called Monkey Parking, allows drivers who score a notoriously hard-to-get San Francisco parking spot to sell it.

The antitrust lawsuit filed by Cablevision against Viacom is moving ahead, despite Viacom’s effort to get it dismissed. Should the suit continue, and be decided in Cablevision’s favor, it would set a precedent restricting the ability of programmers to force MVPDs to accept bundles of ancillary – and usually unwanted – content in order to get access to premium channels.

MRV Communications said it has expanded its OptiDriver optical transport portfolio with new 12- and 16 slot chassis. The new systems are appropriate for smaller 10G and 100G networking environments, balancing bandwidth and integrated management features to streamline the delivery of services such as cloud connectivity and content delivery.

TIM Brasil is using Entone’s Hybrid TV system as the basis for a video service it has tested in two cities and plans to launch commercially later this year that will blend free to air and over the top (OTT) content. The carrier has also deployed Minerva Networks’ platform to define and manage content from multiple sources.

Comcast has added an official extension for Google Chrome that supports more than 50 live TV channels and on demand content from its Xfinity TV Go web portal. The Chrome feature is the latest enhancement to Comcast’s stable of TV Everywhere products and services that are available to its authenticated subscribers.

Vyve Broadband recently announced that it had increased the speeds of its data tiers across the company’s nine-state footprint at no additional cost to its current subscribers. Vyve is now offering download speeds of up to 25 Mbps, 50 Mbps and 105 Mbps, and is in the process of moving its standard Internet subscribers to the 25 Mbps tier.

Kevin Gage has left his chief technical officer position (CTO) at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) to join One Media as its new executive vice president and CTO. Gage, who was also executive vice president at NAB, was a founder and head of NAB Labs.

Driven by growth in software for home media gateways client-side TV software is projected to top $800 million by 2017. The report by SNL Kagan said that the significant growth projected for home media gateways would be driven by increased demand in North America and Western Europe, which will account for the majority of shipments between last year and 2017.

The CableCARD has been a mainstay of separable security for a decade. Recent events have indicated its demise may be inevitable. What does that mean to video service providers who currently use CableCARDs? From the operator's standpoint, the security needs to be in place, but in a different form. With the help of some regulatory changes, new security strategies can enable subscribers to enjoy services in new and convenient ways, especially as we all become more mobile and constantly connected.

UPC Hungary is delivering YouTube content to its subscribers entirely through the cloud, using ActiveVideo’s StreamCast platform and associated cloud service. While delivery is through UPC Hungary’s set-top boxes, there is no software resident in the box to enable the delivery, according to the companies involved.

Comcast Business is serving up its data and cloud-based voice services to a non-profit farming organization located in the heart of the nation’s premier winemaking region. The Sonoma County Farm Bureau will use Comcast Business’ services to keep area farmers and ranchers in Sonoma County connected with each other and the world at large.

Amazon set out to do something different with the unveiling of its first smartphone Wednesday. How about a completely new way of interacting with your phone, for starters? As part of the showcase of its brand new "Fire Phone," Amazon.com Inc. took the wraps off a feature it calls "dynamic perspective." Turns out, it's more than just a gimmick that allows you to see in 3-D.